Movies: Philomena Update

Without revealing my source, I feel compelled to share with you some clarifying information I received in an e-mail following publication of my Movie post and write-up of Philomena. The author wanted me to take note of the following:

Roscrea was not a Magdalene laundry; it was a Mother and Baby home. The two were basically the same except that M&B homes were ostensibly where girls went voluntarily (although consent is hard to judge in that type of culture, and young women were frequently brought there without realizing what they were getting into) for a first time pregnancy, whereas Magdalene laundries were used to separate out ‘repeat offenders’ (although falling pregnant outside of marriage was in fact never a crime). It was argued (by state and the religious) that the Magdalenes were beyond recovery and would ‘contaminate’ the more innocent first time offender. The archives are full of that type of language.

Both convents ran laundries in which the women were expected to work to earn the cost of their accommodation. Survivors argue that the laundries were sustaining the whole convent in most cases, not just covering the women’s own keep, that the religious community was using the women as little more than slave labor.

A woman would eventually leave an M&B home (once the nuns had sold her child) but Magdalenes found themselves incarcerated for years, some of them for the rest of their lives, deemed unreformed and not fit for society. They had not committed a crime therefore they had not received a sentence therefore they had no specific release date.

Both types of institution were part of the same network, but with important distinctions.

The religious have been very slow to open their archives so the fate of many thousands of women is not yet clear, which is why it’s important to gather the oral histories of survivors, while they are still alive.

I read the story before I approved your comment, ETB. I bet a lot of people are aware of similar stories. I am aware of two, both parents searching for children whom they found had died. It would be interesting to have some sort of forum on the privacy of adoption records. I suspect there are sad stories on both sides and more than one idea about whose needs should be paramount.

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